Chapter Text
“ ‘The Prophets will weep’?” Dr. Bashir repeated. “That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”
“I was just telling you what the translation said,” Worf said as they emerged from Quark’s onto the promenade second level. “I did not say I believed it.”
As they found seats at the nearest table, Odo kept silent, unsure whether to voice his own skepticism or to defend Kira’s beliefs.
Things between them were so new. The last thing he wanted was to make a misstep and ruin it.
“Well, I’m not worried,” Bashir said. “If you look hard enough, you’ll find a Bajoran prophecy for just about anything. The ancient texts are a tangle of vague contradictions.”
“Contradictory, yes,” Odo said. “But informed by real beings. You and I may not see the Prophets as gods, Doctor, but they do have a unique perspective on events.”
Bashir squinted at him. “Since when do you take the Prophets seriously?”
“Since I became involved with a believer,” Odo said.
Bashir’s brow quirked. “I suppose that’s fair.”
Quark brought out their drinks—well, that was, brought out Worf’s and Bashir’s. Odo, meanwhile, fashioned a glass as an extension of his hand and let it fill with a dark liquid.
“You know,” Quark said, “it wouldn’t kill you to just buy a drink.”
Odo rolled his eyes.
“Business hasn’t been this slow since the Dominion was here,” Quark muttered. “You know…I feel I have a civic duty to do something about all this doom and gloom.”
“Hmph!” Odo said. “Civic duty?”
Quark glared at him. “I’m a bartender. It’s my job to keep my customers happy.”
Odo snorted.
“Which is why,” Quark said, “I want to tell you that I’ve extended happy hour.”
“Extended it?” Bashir said.
“From now on,” Quark said, “every hour is happy hour. At least until business picks up. Eat, drink, and be merry!”
“For tomorrow, we die,” Bashir quipped.
Quark cocked his head in agreement and turned back toward the bar’s second level.
“So,” Odo asked Worf, “what does the captain say about this prophecy?”
He didn’t miss the way Quark stopped in his tracks to listen in.
“He is reserving judgment until the computer has finished the translation,” Worf replied.
“Who knows?” Bashir said. “The rest of the tablet probably says, ‘Go to Quark’s. It’s happy hour.’”
“I like the way you think, Doctor,” Quark said.
Odo sighed. He may not believe in the Prophets, but it hardly seemed productive of Starfleet officers to openly mock the Bajoran faith—not if they hoped to bring Bajor into the Federation.
“Well, this is ridiculous,” Bashir said. “Nothing’s going to happen. Someday, we’re all going to look back on this and laugh!”
Odo had barely opened his mouth to reply when a low, deep rumble shook the station.
His eyes widening with alarm, he morphed his drink away and tapped his combadge. “Odo to Ops.”
Sisko answered. “Go ahead, Odo.”
“Captain, are we under fire?”
“No,” Sisko said. “There are no ships in range. Dax…?”
Dax’s voice piped over the comm. “Neutrino levels from the wormhole are off the scale. I’ve never seen—”
There was another rumble. Then, across the table, Bashir’s gaze was drawn behind Odo to the promenade windows.
Odo followed his gaze—just in time to see the wormhole burst open.
A crowd of Bajorans and Starfleet officers alike had gathered on the second level around the windows in question. Odo crossed the few steps to the balustrade; his fingers wrapped unconsciously around the metal.
The station jolted again—harder, this time. Out the window, the wormhole winked out.
“Captain?” Odo asked. “Have any ships come through?”
Sisko’s voice was dark. “Negative, Constable.”
Bashir came up behind him. “How did that prophecy go, again?”
*
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Kira said, stabbing at her plate.
They were seated in the replimat, finally having found a proper moment together.
“Don’t have to do what?” Odo asked.
“Sit here,” Kira said through a bite of fruit. “Watch me eat.”
She smiled at him.
“I don’t mind,” Odo said. “In fact, I rather enjoy it. You eat with such gusto.”
Kira raised her brows.
“…most of the time,” he amended.
She was eating, yes. But not with her usual enthusiasm. Her mind was clearly somewhere else—and it didn’t take much of a leap to guess where.
If only he knew how to navigate this.
Kira sighed, set her fork down. Odo waited.
“I just wish that we knew more about the Reckoning,” she said. “It would give us a better idea of what the Prophets want from us.”
“It seems to me,” Odo said carefully, “if the Prophets want the Bajoran people to follow a given path, they should provide more specific directions.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Kira said.
“Maybe it should.”
She leveled him a look. “The Kai would say that you lack faith.”
“I’m…sorry,” Odo murmured.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Kira said. “I just don’t know how people make it through the day without it.”
“We manage,” Odo said. “Besides…I do have faith in some things.”
“Hmm,” she smiled. “Such as?”
“You.”
His answer clearly caught her by surprise. He watched as a slow, pleased smile warmed her face.
“I’ll try not to disappoint you,” she said.
Odo reached across the table, twining his fingers with hers. Her gaze magnetized to his.
“You couldn’t,” he murmured. “You never will.”
*
That night, Sisko watched out the oval windows in his quarters as the wormhole burst open. The station rumbled beneath his feet, nearly toppling a figurine on the table.
Just as the wormhole winked shut, his door chimed.
“Yes?” he murmured.
His doors slid open, revealing Jake standing in the corridor.
“Jake-o,” Sisko said softly.
Slowly, Jake crossed to him, his eyes never leaving Sisko’s face—as if he feared his father would disappear if he moved too quickly.
“You’re up late,” Jake said.
“Hm, so are you,” Sisko said, affectionately tapping his son’s cheek. “What’s on your mind?”
Jake fidgeted, wrapped his arms around himself.
Sisko had rarely seen his son so…shaken. It brought him back to his earlier days at this post, when Jake was younger—but still old enough to understand far too well that his dad had a dangerous job.
“I don’t know,” Jake mumbled. “I guess I just wanted to see if you’re alright.”
“I’m fine,” Sisko said, folding his arms. “Since when did you become a worrier?”
“I don’t know.” Shaking his head, Jake wandered to the couch. “It’s this Emissary stuff.” He dropped down onto the cushion. “It scares me a little.”
Sisko settled on the arm of the chair, putting an arm around Jake’s shoulders and kissing the top of his head.
“Twice now,” Jake said. “Twice in one year, Dr. Bashir’s called me down to the infirmary to tell me something was wrong with you. And there you were…lying unconscious on a biobed having visions or something.”
He looked briefly up at his dad, then went on, his voice small.
“And there…all I could do was just stand there,” he mumbled, “and—and wonder…if you were ever gonna wake up.”
Sisko rubbed his back. “I know it hasn’t been easy, Jake.”
Jake seized his hand where it rested in his lap. “I don’t want it to happen again.”
Sisko was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
“You know,” he said, “I didn’t ask to be the Emissary. But…for better or worse…I guess that’s what I am.”
Jake stared ahead, unseeing.
“Except for being your dad,” Sisko added.
Jake smiled up at him, and Sisko gave his shoulder a light punch, earning a laugh as he pulled his son in for a hug.
Suddenly, there was a stronger rumble, and the lights in his quarters flickered.
Jake lifted his head. “W-what was that?”
“I’ll find out,” Sisko said softly. He tapped his combadge. “Sisko to Ops. Report.”
Worf answered. “We just experienced a station-wide power drain. We’re attempting to determine the source.”
“Keep me informed,” Sisko said.
“Aye, sir.”
“Dad?” Jake asked.
But before Sisko could answer, his combadge chirped. “Odo to Captain Sisko.”
There was a strange note his voice… “Go ahead.”
“You’d…better come to the promenade, sir.”
“Is there a problem?”
“You could say that.”
Sisko stood, but Jake reached for him. “Dad.”
“It’ll be okay, Jake,” Sisko said softly, despite knowing there was no way he could promise that. “I’ll be back.”
*
Kira was standing in the shrine entrance, lightning flickering at her fingertips.
Her face was pale, her eyes burning blue, and her hair was ruffling in the wind of her power. All around her, the lights on the promenade flickered, energy buzzing in the station’s hull, and the deck plating rumbled beneath her.
“Kira?” Odo croaked.
No answer. She didn’t even seem to hear him.
He approached her, all sense of caution or protocol thrown to the wind. His hand moved of its own accord, reaching for her face, trembling at her cheek. “Nerys?”
She didn’t look at him. There was no emotion in her eyes, no recognition—just raw power.
That wasn’t Kira.
Finally, his duty asserted itself. Protocol. He needed to—
“Odo to Captain Sisko.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’d…better come down to the promenade, sir.”
“Is there a problem?”
“You could say that.”
His substance quivered. He barely found the presence of mind to back away from her, focused as he was on maintaining cohesion.
Duty, Odo. Focus on duty.
In his periphery, a set of doors hummed open. Odo’s gaze flashed to the side just as Sisko and the Kai stepped off the nearest turbolift.
“Report,” Sisko said.
Odo sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t know what’s going on. When I tried to talk to her, she ignored me.”
Then Kira—not Kira—turned her head. Her burning gaze was drawn down the promenade as if by some unseen tether—not to him, but to the captain.
Wind whistled in her hair as she stepped down from the shrine. Then she walked across the promenade, steadily, her gaze never wavering. Glass shattered as she passed—light fixtures, comm panels, the various glasses set out on Quark’s bar counter.
Sisko stepped forward. It took every ounce of Odo’s restraint not to follow.
Kira’s chin lifted, and she spoke in an eerie, reverberating voice. “You…are the Sisko.”
A pair of deputies raced forward.
“Keep your hands off your weapons!” Sisko ordered. “It’s a Prophet.”
A Prophet.
Odo was looking into the eyes of one of Nerys’ gods, standing here, in the flesh.
Kira’s flesh.
“Why have you taken this woman’s body?” Sisko demanded.
“This vessel is willing.”
Of course she was.
“The Reckoning,” the Prophet spoke. “It is time.”
Odo’s matrix trembled.
“The Reckoning,” Sisko repeated. “What is it?”
“The end,” the Prophet said, “of the false vessel.”
“I don’t understand!” Sisko said.
The Prophet lifted Kira’s chin. “I await Kosst Amojan.”
“The Evil One,” Kai Winn said.
Sisko turned to her in question.
“A Pah-wraith,” Winn said, “banished from the Celestial Temple.”
Sisko turned back to the Prophet. “You’re saying a Pah-wraith will take corporeal form as well?”
“The battle will be joined,” the Prophet said.
“This battle—is it to be fought here?”
“The false vessel will be destroyed,” the Prophet replied. “The Sisko must not falter.”
“What false vessel?” Sisko asked.
“Bajor,” the Prophet said, “must not be destroyed.”
Sisko’s brow furrowed.
The Kai approached. “Forgive my blindness—”
Kira’s back turned.
“Prophet,” Winn tried, “hear me! I am the Kai of Bajor! I offer myself to you as your humble servant.”
The Kai sank to her knees. But the Prophet didn’t turn.
“I await Kosst Amojan,” it said.
“Speak to me!” Winn begged. “Tell me what I should do!”
The Prophet did not reply.
*
Dominion Headquarters | Cardassia
“Wake him.”
Obediently, the Vorta Rivun pressed the hypo to Dukat’s neck. The Changeling waited.
Dukat’s eyes fluttered open.
“Dr. Cox,” he said.
The Changeling smiled. “Not quite.”
Dukat’s eyes narrowed. He shifted upright. But as he opened his mouth—a careful, guarded movement—his gaze landed on Rivun.
Immediately, his gaze darkened to a glower. “Where am I?”
“Dominion Headquarters.”
“And I take it you are not really a Federation doctor,” Dukat said, measured, dangerous.
Again, the Changeling smiled. “No.”
Dukat peered at him. Took in the rest of the room with those shifting reptilian eyes—the medical instruments, the walls lined with sample tubes, the lack of any other biobeds.
The forcefield in the corner, within which living flames writhed and jumped in their cage.
“What’s going on?” Dukat rose to his feet, predatory. “Why am I here?”
The Changeling glanced Rivun’s way.
If it were possible, Dukat’s eyes narrowed even further.
“No need to look so suspicious,” Rivun said, charming as always. “We have a common goal.”
“Do we?”
Rivun opened his mouth, but Dukat steamrolled over him.
“Because from where I’m standing,” he said, “it looks like I’m in a laboratory.” He glared at the Changeling. “But that’s not possible, is it? After all, your people and mine are allies.”
“I assure you,” Rivun said, a warning edge creeping into his tone, “it’s possible.”
Dukat peered at each of them in turn, coiled, ready to strike.
And then he shot to his feet, his fingers gripping Rivun’s throat.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he growled. “Now.”
“Put him down,” the Changeling ordered.
Dukat shot a scathing glance over his shoulder. He didn’t release Rivun—even as the Vorta struggled and coughed.
“I said,” the Changeling repeated, “put him down.”
Dukat ignored him. But, then again, the Changeling hardly expected anything different. Instead, he stepped over to a console and tapped a few buttons.
Dukat spasmed.
Rivun tumbled from his grip, but the Changeling was more interested in the way Dukat staggered back and collapsed against the biobed, one arm ineffectually clawing at its frame. He was struggling for breath, his body still seizing, flame flickering in his eyes. But through it all, a last vestige of the Prefect of Bajor remained—in the way he glared up at the Changeling from beneath his scaled brow, dark and murderous.
Murderous, but controlled.
The Jem’Hadar were murderous, too. But they would never harm a Founder.
“Now that you have seen what happens if you misbehave,” the Changeling said, dispassionate, “shall we continue?”
Dukat’s only answer was a glare.
Good.
He was dangerous. Cunning. Persistent. He had a personal vendetta against Bajor—a planet of Solids, whose gods had wiped out a Dominion fleet. And he already had their Emissary’s attention.
But he belonged to the Founders now.
He would make the perfect vessel—and the so-called Prophets the Bajorans held so dear would burn.
*
Deep Space Nine
Odo didn’t remember how he got to Ops. Nor was he following anything the senior staff said.
—she lay motionless on the biobed—
—her eyes burned blue, wind in her hair—
—he gathered her in his arms, cupped her head to his chest—
—again and again, his shovel struck the ground—
—glass shattered as she walked—
…I await Kosst Amojan…
“…chroniton radiation,” Dax was saying.
Winn’s voice filtered through. “Are you suggesting that we kill a Prophet?”
Kill.
“I won’t do that,” Sisko said.
“You won’t have to,” Bashir said. “If you ramp up the chroniton levels, slowly, you’ll give the wormhole alien a chance to leave Kira’s body without getting hurt.”
Odo lifted his head.
“We have everything rigged and ready to go,” Dax said. “Just say the word.”
Ops was silent.
Odo’s substance churned.
…chroniton levels…
…leave Kira’s body…
…just say the word…
He could save her.
They could expel the Prophet that possessed her, without hurting it.
He could save her.
“No,” Sisko said.
“Benjamin,” Dax said.
“Deep Space Nine is critical to the defense of the Federation,” Worf said. “We cannot risk destroying it.”
“When the Dominion fleet was about to come through the wormhole,” Sisko said, “I asked the Prophets for their help. They gave it to me. Now they’re asking for my help. They need to fight this battle here, now. I’m not going to jeopardize my crew, but I’m not going to stand in the way of the Prophets, either.”
“What if the Prophets lose?” Bashir asked. “Are you willing to sacrifice Kira?”
…sacrifice…
Odo’s matrix tightened into knots.
In another life, he would have disregarded her wishes, ignored her beliefs, if it meant saving her life.
He had felt exactly as he did now.
Reeling.
Desperate.
Faced with her loss—and tossed a lifeline. A solution he wanted nothing more than to grasp with all he had. Anything to keep her in his life.
He could not let that desire come to pass.
“The Prophet said she was willing to be their instrument,” Sisko said.
“And you believe that?” Worf asked.
“I do,” Odo said.
All eyes turned on him. But he couldn’t lift his own from the floor.
He forced out the impossible words.
“I know how important her faith is to her, and…I have no doubt that she would allow the Prophets to use her as their instrument.”
For a long, horrible beat, no one spoke.
“I’ll notify Starfleet that we’re abandoning the station,” Sisko finally said. “Begin the evacuation immediately.”
Sisko retreated to his office. Orders given, the others moved to their stations to attend their duties, silent, somber.
Odo couldn’t move.
Worf suddenly looked up, noticed him. “Constable. You are to—”
“I know my duty,” Odo growled. “I’ll thank you to stay out of it.”
His words drew a few startled looks, but Odo ignored them, retreating to the turbolift and ordering it to take him to the promenade.
He planned to do his duty. He really did. It was his only refuge. But the turbolift deposited him in the very spot he’d stood before, and his gaze caught on the sight of Kira—the woman he loved, who he was very likely about to lose—standing amid the howling wind, blue eyes aglow.
Every cell in his body ached.
He hadn’t been with her, in the end, before.
He’d missed her by a day.
He’d lost her once. He’d buried her. He’d spent two hundred long years without her, alone. And he was faced with that same existence now.
His place was here, at her side.
As Odo stepped clear of the turbolift, he tapped his combadge. “Odo to T’Sorra.”
“T’Sorra here.”
“Please coordinate evacuation of Deep Space Nine,” Odo said, tonelessly. “Report to the captain.”
“Sir—”
“Those are my orders. Odo out.”